Summary

The Consumer Pyramids is the largest survey of households in India. The survey contains record-level data that are delivered in the form of population estimates. The survey contains multiple databases that contain population estimates on household demographics, household income and expenses, borrowing by household, and household assets. The data also contain individual-level health status, financial inclusion, education level, and caste and literacy estimates. Demographic information collected include gender, age, religion, education, and occupation.

Database Composition: The Consumer Pyramids Survey is conducted over the course of four-month periods or waves throughout the year totaling three rounds a year. This collection includes the following six databases:
People of India; Household Income and Expenses; Household Amenities, Assets, and Liabilities; Household Expenses; Composition of Incomes at the member level; Composition of Incomes at the household level.

Geographic Coverage

Smallest Geographic Unit

Time Period(s)

2014

Date of Collection

2014-01 -- 2014-04

2014-05 -- 2014-08

2014-09 -- 2014-12

Data Collection Notes

The survey is conducted all over the country, except in the following north eastern states: Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura, Meghalaya, Sikkim, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Dadra, Nagar Haveli, Lakshadweep, Daman, and Diu. The survey covers Assam, Kashmir, and all other parts of the country.

Study Design

A stratified multi-stage survey design was deployed by CMIE to draw its sample of households. The Primary Sampling Units (PSUs) were the villages and towns of the 2011 Census. The Ultimate Sampling Units (USUs) were the households from these PSUs. The broadest level of strata for sampling purpose was the Homogeneous Region (HR), which is a set of neighbouring districts that have similar agro-climatic conditions, urbanisation levels and female literacy. HRs are also approximately of the same size, except in the north east, where the entire set of north-eastern states is considered as one HR. For additional information about study design, please visit the Center for Monitoring Indian Economy website.

Sample

The Consumer Pyramids survey is conducted all over the country, except in the following north eastern states - Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura, Meghalaya and Sikkim and in Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Lakshadweep, Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu. The survey covers all other parts of the country. A stratified multi-stage survey design was deployed by CMIE to draw its sample of households. The sub-strata are the rural and urban regions within each strata, i.e within each HR.
The sampling frame for rural PSUs was the list of villages as of the 2011 Census. The sampling frame for urban PSUs was the list of towns as of the 2011 Census.
Within each HR, two strata were formed - a rural stratum comprising all villages in the HR; and an urban stratum comprising all towns in the HR. However, since there is much variance in the size of towns, towns within a HR were stratified further on the basis of their size. All towns of an HR were stratified into four strata based on the number of households in 2011, as follows:
Very large towns had more than 200,000 households.
Large towns had between 60,000 and 200,000 households.
Medium sized households had between 20,000 and 60,000 households.
Those with less than 20,000 households were the small towns.
One or more towns were randomly selected from each of these size-bins. A total of 325 towns were selected through this process.
From each of these towns, 21 Census Enumeration Blocks (CEB) were randomly selected. A CEB is a cluster of about 100-125 neighbouring households. Households were then selected through a process of systematic random sampling from each of the CEBs. A total of 7,579 CEBs and 112,024 urban households were selected through this process.
Like the urban sample, the rural sample selection is also a two-staged sampling process. The first step in the design is to select villages and then the final step is to select households. Villages were selected through simple random sampling process. Villages are the PSUs. Households were selected from these through a process of systematic random sampling from each selected village.
Rural India is surveyed in 97 HRs. The rural sample comprises 46,600 households from 2,844 villages.
The sample size is about 160,000 households. Of this, 112,024 are urban households picked from 7,579 CEBs of 325 towns. And, the remaining 46,600 rural households were picked from 2,844 villages. This overall sample size is the outcome of the sampling methodology and decisions regarding the sample size at the Primary Sampling Units (PSUs) level.
The sample size for the urban PSU (a sample town) is 320 households and the sample size for one CEB within the town is fixed at 8 households. For the rural PSU (a sample village), the sample size was fixed at 16 households.
The sample households from some CEBs and some villages were increased following a re-balancing of the sample in response to the 2011 Census results. The sample size from some CEBs was raised to 14 or 16. And, the sample size from some villages was raised to 24 households. The larger urban sample size reflects the greater diversity in town-size and greater variance in variable values. This sample size was frozen in the Round that began in April 2015 after a re-balancing of the earlier sample following the results of the 2011 Census results. The sample size and its distribution will remain frozen till the next replenishment scheduled for May 2016.
Additional information can be found at the Center for Monitoring Indian Economy website.

Time Method

Longitudinal: Panel

Universe

Households and household members in the country of India excluding the states of Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura, Meghalaya, Sikkim, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Dadra, Nagar Haveli, Lakshadweep, Daman, and Diu.

Unit(s) of Observation

Individual

Household

Data Type(s)

survey data

Mode of Data Collection

Original Release Date

2017-06-15

Version Date

2017-12-20

Version History

2017-06-15 ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:

Weight

The data are unweighted. Weights are assigned to individuals from the sample households at the strata level for estimations in a Wave. It is the ratio of estimated population in the urban strata to the sample population in the Wave. Estimated population is obtained using Compounded Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) on Census data while sample population are the individuals in the sample households in the Wave.

Notes

The public-use data files in this collection are available for access by the general public. Access does not require affiliation with an ICPSR member institution.

This study was originally processed, archived, and disseminated by Data Sharing for Demographic Research (DSDR), a project funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD).